Bow Scouts Guide
Beforehand This is a repost of Mirose/milesomaga's guide from the gamepotusa forums I.General Role If you want a class that smashes people in the face and do uberhax damage, than look else where. Your primary job is for you to kill/interrupt mages. Your secondary job is to pick off runners if possible, given you have the longest range in the game, support dps, and savior. Bow scouts' goal is not to rank on pc damage, it is to become the most feared player by enemy mages. Bow scout is valuable in a good party to counter enemy mages and save teammates form death. Edit:...since some after a few minutes go "wall of text *close*" The most essential thing is usually missed DO NOT BREAK ICE OR COVER DAMAGE II.Skills Please note that I am leaving out damage because damage doesn’t matter in this game and you have to be adept in knowing what skills to use and when to use them. The last words i.e.: Recommended or Preference means having it in your skill bar. Recommended means I strongly recommend you have these in your skill bar but you don’t have to take the recommendation. Preference means your choice if you want it your rotation or not. Basic Bow Attack – Power 0 Comment: Basic attack is usually kept out of skill bar to make room for more useful utilities. This skill is easily replaced with air raid. Air Raid – Power 10 Description:Shoots an arrow in an arc. Target type: Small AoE (area of effect) circle, single Comments: The advantage of having this skill is that it is spamable and is easier to hit on hilly/bumpy terrain. Even with an AoE circle you will rarely hit two people with one Air Raid. (okay, after long period of playing I prefer using TS over this so this is now my swapping skill IE switching out for poison or dagger) Preference Blaze Shot – Power 25 Description:Shoots an arcing fire arrow that does burn damage over time. 3 ticks Target type: Moderate AoE circle, multiple/piercing Comments: This is basically one of your bread and butter skills. This skill is simple enough; all you have to do is keep the enemy burning. This also allows for several powerful combos that will be discussed later. Recommended Arrow Rain – Power 36 Description:Rain of arrows <.< what more is there to explain. Target type: Large AoE circle, multiple Comments: Great skill but does have its down falls. First the pros are that is your largest AoE, does decent damage, has about the same range as eagle shot and is spamable with power pots. This is great for front lining if used correctly because it interrupts attacks and reveals any hidden scouts in the area. Recommended Eagle Shot – Power 15 Description:Fires an arrow that travels quickly and far. Target type: none, single Comments: This is the bane of runners. This skill takes awhile to master but once you are able to hit above 70% of your eagles you will be able to take out quiet a few runners. The problem with aiming is one lag. Leading shots usually takes 1 or 2 shots to calibrate for each person because of lag. Recommended Power Shot – Power 30 Description:Fires a powerful arrow. Target type: none, single Comments: This skill takes a while to start but has a rather powerful kick to it. This should be used every now and than but don’t spam. The high power cost is not worth the damage it deals. You have to use your judgment whether it is appropriate to use this skill. Mainly use when you are about 95-100% sure it will hit. Preference Piercing Shot – Power 76 Description:Fires a long range attack that penetrates, and knocks back. Target type: none, multiple/piercing Comments: This skill requires its own section to be covered in Rules of Engagement. Word of warning this skill has a long startup. A few words here this skill is HIGHLY SITUTIATIONAL and your best bet is to not use it until you got a good hold of the game. Recommended Poison Shot – Power 22 Description:Fires a poisonous arrow. 4 ticks Target type: none, multiple/piercing Comments: Startup speed is about the same as power shot or web. This is your second DoT and can stack with fire’s burn. Hard to aim as it travels slowly and has no AoE circle targeting. Peference Web – Power 18 Description:Shoots white sticky stuff. No really shoots a web at the enemy and slows the enemy. Level 1 8 seconds Level 2 9 seconds Level 3 10 seconds Target type: none, multiple/piercing Comments: Well now this is an interesting skill. The startup and travel speed is the same as poison making it difficult to hit. This is useful in many situations namely running away. It is a slow what is there not to like. Recommended True Shot – Power 18 Description:Shoots a straight arrow that is AoE and pierces. Target type: none, multiple/piercing Comments: This is helpful for beginners and taking down laggers/runners. It has a moderate size AoE hit box and it goes through people, thus if the enemy is in a straight line you will pretty much damage most of them. True Shot is relatively easy to hit and is reliable on flat terrain. This skill is perfect for taking dagger scouts out of hide. Recommended Basic Dagger Attack – Power 0 Description:Normal dagger attack Target type: none, single Comments: Daggers just does more damage to buildings. Note: Keep a dagger with you at all times and macro the switch between your bow and dagger. I will not go into depth of quick switch but the command is /eq , #=slot number in inventory. Note: would be helpful if you enchanted your dagger with building damage if you like to sap. Preference. Hide – Power 50 Description:Grants temporary invisibility, sacrifice speed. Target type: self Level 1: 60% movement speed for 2 minutes. Level 2: 70% movement speed for 2 minutes 35 seconds. Level 3: 80% movement speed for 3 minutes 35 seconds. Comments: Don’t hide in plain sight of the enemy reasons are they can still mouse over you and see your target circle. That being said hide has many weaknesses if you afflicted with a debuff than you will be seen as cloud of ice/fire/darkness/poison etc moving about the map. When walking in water, people will see ripples and hear splashes. Finally, they can hear your foot steps and side-steps. This can also be used for sapping purposes, running away, or traveling to a sniper ledge. Peference Okay skill tree is basically something like Air Raid unlocks Blazing Shot and Blazing shot unlocks Arrow Rain. Air Raid->Blazing Shot->Arrow Rain Eagle Shot->Power Shot->Piercing Shot Poison Shot->Web Shot->True Shot Skill build: You should be at least level 16 when leaving the tutorial so you have some points to play around with. *Reminder since the patch of August 10, 2010. They revamped the tutorial allowing you to change class and reset skills at level 20 and below. Comments: This is just the way I play you don’t have to follow it. Common mistake is that people take a guide for every word it says. A guide by definition shows you the way but you still have to walk the path yourself. Builds: My reasons for not having Piercing shot as top priority is because your main job is killing mages. Running away for you should not be a problem most of the time if you are constantly aware of the surroundings. Arrow rain -> Power shot -> True shot -> Piercing shot *^ basically means get Air raid, Blaze shot, Arrow rain since you can't get arrow rain without getting them anyways. Pros: Early exposure to eagle shot and Arrow rain. Cons: no early True shot, difficult for first time players to adjust with aiming. True shot -> Blaze Shot -> Power Shot -> Arrow Rain -> Piercing Shot *Power shot first if you don't like fighting in huge mobs. True shot -> Blaze Shot -> Eagle Shot -> Arrow Rain -> Power Shot -> Piercing Shot *Arrowrain first if you love to frontline/ fighting large mobs. Pros: You start out with True Shot. Cons: You obtain piercing shot later, late eagle practice. http://feskill.omiki.com/sco.html?3IK3600000000 (Xythailia's build for starters) I remind you all do not have to follow these skill builds it should be base around your play style and there is no clear cookie cutter build in this game. Combos (Note: not all will work on warriors using embolden, the anti flinch skill) Blazing Shot + Power Shot Blazing shot makes the enemy flinch allowing you to chain an attack right after; however, this has to be done almost immediate after you fire your blazing shot, so almost no room for hesitation. (tip: keep the first 1-5 skills you need for a chain and use number keys for quicker switch. The one I use is 4 for Blaze and 2 for Power. Pretty soon you'll get into the habit of pressing 4242 when you are running to starve off boredom haha.) Best used against Dagger scouts and mages that like to get really close. Blaze+Eagle(x2) Eagle shot is basically half the pw cost of Power shot for half the damage. This is used to if you want to maintain a safe distance or picking at mages from a distance. If you want to chain the second Eagle than you have to catch the enemy off guard most of the time. Blazing Shot +/- Poison Shot +/- Web – Can be used against warriors as well. I usually stick to Blazing + Web or vice versa, simply because I don’t always have poison on my skill bar and it seems more efficient because of AoE circle. I notice some people use Blaze + Poison because Blaze will flinch giving poison a chance to hit. I mostly use this against giants or wraiths. This combo is great and annoying. It is annoying to hit with because of poison and web slow start up and travel speed. This however can wreck havoc on the enemy’s hp. Some people prefer to have both DoTs others one web and one DoT. It is possible to get on all three status on a person. Air Raid spam – Not really a combo but helps keep dagger scouts from getting closer and interrupts mages. III. Rules of Engagement Basic play: Scouts in general serves as support. This means that they can stay behind lines of either side and still be helpful. The bulk of the frontline is not you it is the warriors leave the mindless killing to them. You have a more important role to fulfill. Remember scouts have to be flexible and fill in roles where they are needed. Mining/Building/Summoning:'''The job of mining/building/summoning during mid and late game should be a majority scouts and mages. Reasons being is that without warriors the frontline falters. Imagine all the warriors mining while only mages and scouts tank an onslaught not a pretty sight. You should fill this role when you are low on miners/builders/summoners. '''Infiltration/sapping: As a bow scout you can choose to infiltrate the enemy’s base.You can crystal harass with poison+blaze. Your other job is to notify GoH, summons, and obelisks positions. Moving on to mid-late game, your job now turns into sapping enemy GoH and Obs. You can solo but it is best if you find a buddy. Group play: Stick to a group, party up, with corps members or random pugs, regardless if you are attacking/defending Obs or front lining. YOU CAN NOT ACCOMPLISH ANYTHING ALONE. A bow scout shines in numbers more than anything else. Arrow Rain interrupts mages casting spells that will devastate your party or frontline. Your primary objectives are scaring/killing off enemy mages and revel hidden scouts. Make sure you are supporting your mages by keeping most of your enemies under a DoT. Your secondary objective is not as important but try to pick off runners when you can. Eagle Shot/Air Raid/True Shot: These are the bane of enemy runners. The rule I try to stick with is fire 1-3 shot(s) at the runner if they hit great if they don’t let it go. I know that sounds harsh but please refrain from tunnel vision and focus on what is occurring. Why 1-3 shots on shot(s)? Well if you are chasing: A. The runner is probably far away B. He is probably baiting or you are going to run into his allies really soon. The first reason is simple if he is that far away for you to use eagle than he is going to be out of range soon. The low hp enemy will entice you to continue to follow him to get the kill just because he is almost dead. This brings up the second issue. If you do chase for the kill you will most likely get jumped on by warriors that magically appear out of no where. This occurs because you are narrowing your vision on the low hp enemy and fail to see where he is running and get yourself killed. Once you know how to check your surroundings, you can go ahead and remove the limit. Aside from killing runners, if you see enemies in the distance that is standing still or in the middle of an animation spam eagle at them. Basically see a mage chanting or a person standing around just spam eagle IF no one else is attacking the person reasons are below. Attack canceling: If your any of your attacks hits just right before the heavy smash/he||fire hits than it will cancel out heavy smash/hellfire. Just keep this in mind. 377px|center Reminder: Most of your skills are faster than other classes so they get hit priority. This means you will most likely cancel out someone's attack more often or not. check out this thread http://forum.gamepotusa.com/showthread.php?3546- Stuns: Keep an eye out for 1H warriors on either side. In either situation of friendly or foe prepare to use web. Slow enemy 1H’ders to keep your allies safe and slow ally 1H’ders’ targets for easier stun. (If you have a good ally ice mage than let him/her take over) Stunned Enemy: Ignore him/her reasons are above, hit/attack canceling. You must never knock stun units back/down because you waste a 3 second stun and most likely saving the enemy (THIS MEANS DO NOT PIERCING SHOT STUNS). Basically a stunned enemy should = dead might as well ignore him/her. Stunned Ally: This one is very difficult to decide. First evaluate your surroundings if no one else is coming to his aid but enemies use piercing shot if possible. If there are equal amounts of friendlies and foes surrounding the stunned unit than you have to react to the situation that is presented. For example: If enemies are attacking the person that is stunned than just blaze spam because other allies should be helping you down that enemy. If it is more enemies attacking the stunned ally or your teammates haven’t notice, piercing shot if possible. There is also the situation that an ally 1H’der is going up to save the person that is stunned, do not use piercing shot unless the enemies are overwhelming. Some situations piecing shot might not be best or you don't have enough power you can just look for either a mage or a dscout and focus on them ((fire>light)mage>dscout>=(ice)mage). Any other situation is up to your best judgment. Rooted/Iced: They both mean the same thing when people are iced they are afflicted with the rooted status meaning they can’t move. General rule of thumb for everyone: Please do not attack iced units with a weak attack. Now than bow scouts listen up that means no normal, air raid, eagle shot, poison, blaze, web, arrow rain, true shot, power, and especially piercing. Yes that is all the bow scouts skills so lay off the iced units unless you can kill them in one shot with a power/eagle. If ice is about to end with no one around and no one is taking ice just web/fire and move on. If you are spamming arrow rain on the front line when an ally ice mage is present you are most likely going to break ice. This is the major downfall of arrow rain and you should try to be aware of your ally ice mages. Piercing Shot: I think we need a whole thread discussion on its uses because this is simply not enough. I will however outline why this is an important skill to learn. First off piercing shots effects are that it covers a wide range and has knock back. Sounds decent so far, but it is vital to learn when to use it. Simple scenario: Enemy chimera running to your base on open flat terrain and you have teammates and knights dpsing it. Okay you decide to use piercing shot to knock it down and slow it down. This is not okay, it is better to let your knights dps. However, if the Chimera is right next to your base with more than enough hp to last about 3-4 knight divine thrusts knock it down and away from the keep, if you do not know how to knock it away than don't using piercing shot because you may be aiding the enemy. Important to note take in terrain and use it to your advantage if the chimera is going up a cliff or is on a cliff going to your base knock it off if it takes longer for the chimera to get up. This note applies to players and other summons and depends on SITUATION. If the summon is almost dead and a knight is about to land the last few blows don’t knock it down. Complex scenario: Normal foot soldiers. This may seem simple but a piercing shot will easily disrupt the front line giving either side a chance to gain control. Sounds good right? NO. Like I said observe, if this sounds like a pain to you go play a different game/class. The frontline is ever changing and doesn’t stay consistent. If say a noob spam piercing shot into the frontline it will knock enemies back, this can possible save a mortally wounded enemy from facing one of your warrior’s heavy smash. This will also give the enemies a chance to regroup if they were being pushed by your allies. You also run the risk of knocking back stuns and breaking ice units. Uses: Piercing shot should be use defensively such as to save allies as mentioned earlier. This means if the mass of your forces gets rooted or some stunned than use the piercing shot when the enemies begin to concentrate in one area. They usually concentrate in one area to quickly take down one of your friends and move to the next one. It can be used for running away and to keep enemy forces from pushing. Example Your front line is disorder and needs to pull back and regroup or is simply not holding up. When everyone is retreating fire off a piercing shot to buy time for your teammates. Even when the time is appropriate to use piercing shot it can still depend what is occurring around your surroundings. Taking the last example say that you guys are retreating but the whole front line is being used as bait for a flank team to come by and ambush the enemy's side. This is very difficult to decide whether or not you should fire a piercing shot because you need to judge where the others are flanking and the distance. If they are close and are charging in don’t fire piercing because it will disrupt their stuns but if they are too far you will need to buy some time. This is just an example not likely to happen but it is to show you that you have to pay attention to your surroundings. Offensive: It is possible to use Piecing shot offensively but it is a lot more difficult to pull off correctly. This is where hide comes in handy. Basically position your self on the side of the enemy line at this point you want to time the shot when enemy reinforcement shows up and wounded enemies start to retreat. You want to fire the shot off so that the reinforcements get knocked further away from their allies, delaying them from saving their teammates, and knocking injured players back into your team. Finally, the art of running away. Use it when you are escaping enemies and there are no teammates around to come to your aide. The main problem with piercing shot used as an escaping skill is, that it cost 76 power. You are basically dead if you miss or get interrupted. An alternative would be web if there is only a couple chasing you. Arrow Rain: Main purpose is to screw over enemy range support. Here is a video to make things simple: http://zoome.jp/hdmoter/diary/9/ <-HQ (broken) 377px|center Phase 1: basically teaching you how to spam arrow rain while managing power. Simply, fire once, wait for regeneration and repeat 3 more times. This way you get a more consistent spam and save some PW in the event something happens. Phase 2: This shows where to aim, what to aim, and what to avoid. Simply shoot in the back rank where most of the mages, bow scouts, reinforcements are coming from. The thing to avoid is ice simple enough. Phase 3: Shows the placement and surrounding. You want to position yourself at an angle where you can reach the back rank and be least noticeable, usually sides or ledges. Moving targets is the usual just lead but try to get as many as you can. Finally paying attention to what is occurring because you are not exempt from being flanked. The general idea is to isolate warriors on the front line from their range support/weaken reinforcements. Pretty simple stuff. Blaze Shot/Arrow rain Knock Down: These are mostly for flinchers, i.e. not embolden warriors. Okay general knowledge, knock back makes you invincible even standing back up. Now here is the exception these two knock downs will remove invincible frames. Yep this means free shot(s). I am pretty sure some of you have notice that you Blaze+Power and the power shot hit while the enemy is still on the ground. That is thanks to Blaze shot. *new* Special way needed to aim both blaze shot and arrow rain. The target has to be in the center of the targeting circle for the skill to remove the immunity. Have not had a chance to test arrow rain extensively but blaze shot seems more lenient to aim for the effect in my opinion. You can also have blaze shot knock someone down in mid arc and the effect will still take place. http://zoome.jp/anetugao/diary/18/ (broken) 377px Blaze Shot -> Blaze Shot -> Blaze Shot -> Blaze Shot This will basically stagger an enemy for your team to catch up, stun/heavy smash and kill. This requires a lot of power but Blaze Shot is the only skill I know of that will not cancel attacks. A really good example of how this is helpful: Ally warrior, enemy dagger scout, and you. You and the warrior is bent on killing this annoying disarming dscout but every time the warrior gets close he gets disarmed. Solution would be to flinch lock/stagger with blaze shot the dscout so he can not disarm or run away. In the case the dscout jumps/side-steps it will be counted as a blaze knock down. Videos: Lessons: http://zoome.jp/hayagiri_movie/diary/27 (warning this is a Japanese Lecture/class video so it will be long. There are a few demos in there.) 7:14-7:17 Arrow rain+eagle 7:57-8:01 Blaze+power 8:28-8:56 Blaze+eagle 12:04-12:11 Blaze staggering 15:00-15:10 Okay this seems like they are prolonging the free hit ice gives with the Blaze knock down. Enemy has to use strike smash, slam, or viper bite. *Edit: Okay okay, I found out the reason for this to be demoed. In some situations warriors will purposefully remove their embolden during ice so they can SS/slam and get knock down before they get stunned. They do this similar to dscout VB to reduce the time that they are vulnerable if they are stunned (dscouts also does this to avoid being flinch locked). This is a high level trick which I doubt many do so not too practical on our server. 15:50-16:06 Blaze root->stun. Do not do this yet until people become more proficient. I mention earlier not to break ice; however, you can break it with blaze to flinch and have someone stun but this needs coordination. Do not expect people to just stun right after you blaze and blame them for missing stun. If you do this make sure you time it correctly during wars if you mess up with a random 1H than he/she will be less forgiving than your corps mate. 16:40-16:56 It seems like the situation is PURE 1H and you only. You can power shot the stun because a pure 1H can't do enough damage. This shouldn't occur too often because we have like a billion 2H running around. 18:10-19:42 Hybrid 1H gets steamrolled with no support. Second time bow scouts fires a piercing shot to hinder enemy aid and allow team to pick off a person. This is what should be done on sidelines not so much on the frontlines. If you are frontlining just stick to arrow rain and piercing shot to slow down enemy pushes. If you do use this on the frontline you better be careful and know what is happening in your surroundings. last 9 minutes: This is for all you scout hybrids. Basically guard break helps a lot and should be applied before ice/stuns so you won't cancel out any damage. War: (these are about 25mins long) 9-1-38k (broken) 4-1-29k (broken) If you guys want more videos you can use the zoome site and copy and paste 弓ｽｶ (bow scouts) into the search or if you have a nico nico douga account you can also use that site. Though problem with these videos are it is mainly just watching bow scouts arrow rain a bit, hide behind lines for power than arrow rain and throw in some eagle/true shot. If a dagger scouts appear it is usually blaze stagger or blaze+power/eagle until an ally 1H scares the dscout away. Mainly if you want to watch these videos and learn something other than arrow rain, true shot, and eagle shot usage, than watch how lines shifts, when they use piercing shot, and how they manage their power. Aiming: Crosshair: Your typical shooter crosshairs. Helpful for new players to see where they are aiming. All I can say is that I really don't prefer using this unless it is to rock/cliff climb. Cursor/feather: I suggest you learn how to use this mode. This gives you more control in general. It may be hard at first but you will get use to it within about two days worth of gaming. This mode makes it easier to scan for hidden scouts and not have your screen shake while you scan. Finally, you may notice that sometimes your shots will stop a millisecond away from where you clicked. It usually occurs when you flick your mouse about half a screen across. You will have to account for that and make sure you rotate your screen. Archer mentality: This may sound lame but this focuses on self confidence and a little foresight. Basic Scenario: Archer fires arrow at bullseye in a normal shooting range. From drawing the arrow to the end of the arrow's flight, there is only one image in the archer's mind. The image of the arrow hitting the mark. In reality the result of whether the arrow hit the target or not does not matter as long as the archer has no doubts in his image. Basically believe in yourself (*insert TTGL quote*). So how does this relate to FEZ? Basically after getting the hang of leading you will want to learn how to chain attacks. As mentioned earlier Blaze+power shot requires almost no room for hesitation. Using this mentality of " The blaze shot already hit" you fire the power shot right after shooting Blaze shot. Ofc the game is not as simple as that but that is the mentality you should be on if you do use this combo. Air raid/ eagle shot spam: Okay so basically I am going to teach you how to flinch lock. The way I flinch people is spam in intervals of 2 or 3 shots. For example air raid: *'WARNING': May cause mental blocks for people who already know how to flinch lock. Fire shot 1 at moving enemy Predict enemy position after being flinched Fire shot 2 *while/before shot 1 hits* Confirm shot 1 (note: ^ that is you "believing you hit", this step is where you confirm the hit) If shot 1 hit continue with calculation and repeat until miss. If miss stop relax/wait for pw and repeat step 1. Yea, I make it sound harder than it actually is. The first four steps will happen in about a second so don't worry about it too much since this can be acquired through experience. Many people naturally already do this and are not aware of the process. The more you play the game the better your predictions will become. IV.Final Words: It can not be stressed enough that you need to be aware of what is occurring in a war. Pay attention to the mini-map and chat whenever you can. Look at the enemies’ formation and compare them to yours. Learn the difference between chasing runners and being baited. Maybe it is role playing but I think archers/bow user in almost any game is one of the most tactical classes. For a tactician to work they need to be flexible and adapt to the changing environment of war. That is why bow scouts are given various utilities from damage to slow. They support other classes if the task is too overwhelming for one person. This game in general you need to be able to fill in different roles; however, bow scouts are given skills specifically for this reason. Remember this game is not about winning it is about enjoy working together so become an asset for your team and yourself. VI.Credits: FEZuniverse wiki for some skill descriptions, numbers, and icon. Finally, a guide that I used before and during OB1 for informational uses and reference. http://www.fezuniverse.com/forums/sc...general-guide/ Still grammar errors don't feel like fixing them. Update: even more info on attack/hit/combo canceling. Props for Achiel-san for video. - Arrow rain effect - Sayuri for discovery and Namath for vid. Category:Repost Category:Bow Category:Scout Category:Guide